Cartridge type quick coupling devices are known for inserting in a cylindrical socket formed in an element of a fluid transport circuit, such as a pump, a manifold, an actuator, a pneumatic module, a flow or pressure regulator, or indeed another tube. Such a device generally comprises a tubular body provided internally with a toothed washer for retaining a tube and provided externally with anchor means for anchoring the device in the cylindrical socket.
The device often includes a tubular disconnection pusher that is slidably mounted in a channel of the tubular body to move between an extended portion and a pushed-in position and that serves, on being pushed into the body, to act on the teeth of the tube-retaining washer in order to cause the tube to be released.
In a particularly elaborate version, at its end opposite from the pusher, the body of the device has an axially projecting end from which there extends a protection ring that carries an annular sealing gasket. While the device is being inserted in the socket, the protection ring comes to bear against an inlet shoulder of a housing in the socket and it becomes detached from the end of the body so as to slide over the body while the device is being inserted until it becomes retracted so that the annular sealing gasket is pushed on its own into the housing in the socket.
In general, the portion of the body carrying the protection ring and on which the protection ring slides is secured to an insert that is clipped in the body and that slidably receives the pusher. The insert makes it simpler to assemble the retaining washer so that it is captive between the body and the insert.
In certain applications, and in particular in pneumatic installations that include equipment connected by multiple tubes to other elements of the pneumatic circuit in such an installation, installers seek to provide equipment that is ever more compact and lighter in weight. Such specifications involve in particular reducing the spacing between tubes that serve to connect pieces of equipment to other elements of the pneumatic circuit. This spacing is linked in particular with the diameter of the sockets receiving the cartridge quick coupling devices, and thus with the overall size of the cartridges.
Initial work has sought to reduce the thicknesses of the materials constituting the elements of the cartridge. Nevertheless, it has been found that it is not possible to obtain any significant reduction using the materials that are normally used, such as synthetic materials suitable for injection molding, without comprising the mechanical characteristics of the device.
Proposals have also been to use other materials that are stronger, such as steel, however shaping operations (stamping or machining) make that solution uneconomic. Finally, the increase in weight resulting from the use of such materials is incompatible with the targets of installers for light weight.